March 21, 2011

Trippy Tale #3..."Hit And Run"

"HIT AND RUN"

"There is a rather long and winding road in Singapore that's really beautiful in the daytime...

Lush green trees and bushes line the sides of the road and large residential properties sit on both sides. It gets especially breath-taking in the evenings, when the evening sunlight streams across the trees, onto the brown leaves scattered on the road.

We don't get to see much of such places over here, given how small our island state is. It's one of the places I love to drive through...but only in the daytime now, and only if I absolutely have to.

And never in the night!

About a year ago, I had a close friend, K, come visit me in Singapore and it was a happy reunion when I went and collected her from the airport. We had a great time catching up on lost time and talking about our lives and how much we'd progressed since we first met. In fact, we got so engrossed chatting and laughing, that it was too late when I realized I'd missed my turn, and had to make a huge U-turn to get to my friend's hotel.

Groaning inwardly and not wanting her to know that I'd gone the wrong way, I simply drove on and continued talking with her, when I realized that I was headed back for the highway, which leads right back to the airport!

Just as I was about to tell K how silly I was to miss my turn, I saw the entrance to that peaceful winding road and thought it would be a great idea to show her what I felt was one of Singapore's more beautiful spots. So I gladly turned in, and proceeded to tell her about this spot which I'd always enjoyed driving on...

As we turned into the road and drove along, the first thing I noticed was that there were no other cars on the road, which I attributed to the late hour - K had arrived at about 11.30 pm so by the time we got here, it was already about 12.30...past midnight. We were still having a great time, singing along to some silly song on the radio and I remember K remarking endlessly about how big the houses were and how nice it must be for people to live on this road.

Just as I leant forward to turn up the volume on the radio, K suddenly barked in a hoarse whisper, "Drive faster!" Confused and taken aback by her sudden change in demeanor, I looked back onto the road and was startled by the figure of a lone jogger on the left hand side of the road.

"What's he doing here at this late hour?" I wondered softly aloud, sensing that something was not quite right by this time, and glanced around at K who had turned quite pale by this time."K?" I probed, "Are you ok?"

K then grabbed my hand, shocking me as her hand was ice cold, and said shakily, "Damnit G, drive!" Needless to say, I stepped on the gas as hard as I could, overtaking the jogger. As I looked in my rear-view mirror, I got the shock of my life - the jogger was running just behind my car!

It didn't make sense, I was going at least 90 km/h by now and still picking up speed, yet he was following me so closely! I floored it and gripped my steering wheel so tight I'm not sure how I managed to move it around, given how curvy the road was. I was certain by then, that we were both in big trouble, and was kicking myself for taking this route in the first place.

Then K whimpered, and I thought I heard her starting to cry. 2 seconds later, I realized why. He was running alongside my car now, I swear, by this time, I almost swerved the whole car out of fright. From the corner of my eye, I saw that he wasn't really running, but just seemed to be...floating alongside us!

Believe me, I never knew what real fear tasted like, until that night. Then the worst happened...He turned and looked right at me, and for some reason, I turned and looked back...

Dressed in a casual polo T-shirt, he looked like any normal human man, probably in his early thirties, of mixed heritage...only the entire right side of his face was all smashed up and I could see some parts of his skull. He looked angry, yet, his eyes were the most frightening of all. They were so big, yet, so lifeless. But most of all, he didn't have eyeballs...only whites.

I looked at my side-view mirror and only saw the empty road reflected where he should have been, and knew that if this went on any longer, I would certainly have a heart attack!

Then as suddenly as he appeared, he was gone. Gone from my rear-view and side-view mirrors. I sped on and almost cried from relief when I saw the street lamps on the main road just up ahead. I almost got myself into an accident when I went careening out onto it!

It's been about a year since it happened, and I haven't gone back on that road since! Incidentally, I was in a taxi just last week...After a few drinks, and after chatting with the taxi driver for a bit, I thought I'd ask him if he's been on that road. He replied, "NO WAY am I driving on that road at night! Not even if you paid me extra! I'll gladly drop you off at the roadside!"

When I asked him why, he told me that his other cabbie friends have seen this lone jogger and also experienced the same thing as I did. Sometimes the man would appear in front of the vehicle and go on running backwards, (!!) and other times, he would just be following the vehicle closely.

According to what he's heard, this jogger died in a hit-and-run accident and the rogue driver was never found. I guess he's since taken it upon himself to try and locate his killer, therefore, the hauntings. Finally, when I asked K why she told me so urgently to drive faster when she saw him jogging alongside the road (after all, I've seen people jogging late at night, it's nothing unusual), she told me this..."Because I already saw him jogging along the MAIN road even before we entered the curvy road. At first I didn't think much of it, but when I saw him again inside, I knew that there was no way any human being could run that quickly, so that was when I told you to speed up."

I've since done quite a bit of research on places with paranormal activity and now avoid them like the plague! Don't want to make the same mistake again!!"